The $500,000 Coffee

Here’s one way to give-back and create happiness with a simple coffee.

Some time ago a person moved countries, away from their loved ones and family, to begin a new life in a strange and exciting new land. Packing their pride in a suitcase, ready to start from scratch and build a career in the country of their choice, they arrive …

This is not a rare journey taken. The globalisation of the workforce through trade, higher education and accessible visas has increased the ‘migrant workforce’ around the world. However, succeeding in the first year after arrival in a new country can hardly be taken for granted.

There are many contributors to why a new migrant will fail in a new country if they moved without previous employment. In some countries, structural limitations of population, market size, industry, venture capital and geographic connection can lead to a lower local concentration of opportunities.

Even for professionals for whom recertification is not required, the ‘local experience’ bias is an invisible tick of approval that acts as a gatekeeper of opportunity. It’s a catch-22 situation. For native professionals with local career experience, the next role can’t be taken for granted.

The job hunt and career growth is hard. Migration is harder.

Why does it have to be so hard when all people want is to connect to a purpose and create impact?

Most months, I hear from someone who wishes to grab a coffee to seek advice on their career move, startup, or next job. This coffee is worth so much more than the hour and $3.50.

Here’s how I look at it.

This individual who has sought your time is genuinely looking to you for help or inspiration. Their dependents, who rely on them to provide for a better future and a happy home, live in hope that this week brings good news. For someone to ask for help in itself is a test of their confidence. For each person asking for help there are several who have likely lost hope, given up, or at worst succumbed to depression. This is where awareness and empathy are most important for the giver of time.

Let’s say this person earns $125k annually, they are a mid-career professional. Their income helps them fund their children’s education, their parents’ health cost, and savings for a better home. The pay taxes that get converted to public amenities and social good through government, that helps others in need of services such as welfare, police, hospitals and community centres. It may be that their employer earns a 100% benefit from their services. This revenue generates further opportunity for growth, investment in staff education, government taxes and a productive economy that creates more jobs.

So, already this person has a net impact that is over $250k.

I firmly believe in the pay-it-forward principle. In today’s competitive market, we are all in a race to learn and grow. The reality is that there is there is greater income and wealth inequality in the world today than before. So if you are reading this post, you are likely in the top few percent of the world. In my opinion, it is about sharing this opportunity with others so we move forward together. To paraphrase William Gibson’s famous quote, I’d replace ‘the future‘ with ‘opportunity’, and our roles to create more of it for everyone.

"The future is already here it’s just not very evenly distributed" — William Gibson

Back to the coffee. The important part is that this coffee is an opportunity to connect with someone who has the chance to carry ahead the pay-it-forward principle to a second, third and hundredth person. There is no way to scale one person. But when you create a culture, it can be transformative.

The aim is that the people we help will share similar values, and in future carry forward the underlying principle that helped them get ahead. If this is a small request you can make in exchange for the coffee, it creates a growth loop for the principle and compounding benefit.

Imagine this person had an idea that could save lives, help millions of people, or create the next unicorn — think about the impact they would have in the world. This value is hard to easily estimate and I really hope this person won’t give up if you have not met them for a coffee. However, in most startups, one of the toughest things is finding the right mentors, innovation champions and early customers who can make 15min to give you feedback, push your company ahead strategically and share internally.

But at the very least, if this person takes the principle ahead to help just one other person succeed, they have already doubled their impact and created another $250k of value. The coffee is now worth $500k.

Some organisations, incubators, and cultures have this baked into their ethos — I think this is a major part of why some ecosystems are more innovative and progressive than others. TechStars co-founder Brad Feld writes about it as the ‘give before you get‘ principle that is similar but you start without an initial transaction of assistance. The essence is the same and ‘#GiveFirst’ is a higher order principle where you ask for nothing in return. I believe this value speaks to the success and growth of the TechStars community globally.

Writing on the #GiveFirst has only recently emerged so expect this to become more ‘widely distributed’ and adopted soon. Brad Feld also published a book titled “#GiveFirst — A New Philosophy for Business in The Era of Entrepreneurship” in 2018.

Some tips to make it easier for both parties …

For the Requester — People’s habits and current commitments are deeply ingrained. With a job and family comes intense time pressure to balance commitments. So it can be tough to get to those who you really want to connect to. There are many articles on requesting a warm introduction that stress the importance of being tailored, specific and well-researched that can help make the right impression. For startups see AVC, RoyBhat and Mick Liubinskas. The techniques also apply when job hunting.

Sometimes connections are serendipitous and up to chance by going to industry events and Meetups. But if nothing is working, surround yourself with the right mentors who can coach you to get one step further. Just don’t give up!

For the Requestee — If you are getting overwhelmed, create a method to streamline the ask to get to the heart of the matter faster. You can tailor your LinkedIn profile to shift how people approach you with a specific ask. This way you can decide if you can help the requester, or, introduce them to someone who can. Keep this in mind that not responding can damage the confidence of the job seeker, or derail entrepreneur’s journey where there are time constraints to a startup’s success.

Finally, if you are in high demand, you are probably doing something right which you may have an opportunity to translate into a consulting business. The opportunity is in your hands.

Since the world has become increasingly busy and people spend even more time digitally connected, staring at their an endless scroll of content, what’s tragically lost is the basic in-person human connection. But it doesn’t need to be like this.

Over a lifetime, this principle will come back to help many people in their journey and create value.

It starts with a coffee.

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